Life Advocacy Briefing

Another Clinton Connection

IN ONE OF THE LESSER PUBLICIZED DEVELOPMENTS of this Presidential campaign season, World Net Daily (WND) last week, in a report by Bob Unruh, revealed “the discovery that Hillary Clinton’s State Dept. granted favorable treatment to a family involved in the harvesting” of baby body parts.

Among outfits being prosecuted in a criminal lawsuit by the district attorney in Orange County, California – on which we reported in a previous edition of Life Advocacy Briefing – are two companies (DaVinci Biosciences and DV Biologics) owned, according to an investigation by Operation Rescue, by the Isaias family, who, reports OR, quoted by Mr. Unruh, “‘sought asylum in the US in 2008, after looting millions of dollars from an Ecuadorian bank.’” Granting “favorable treatment” to their asylum request, reports Mr. Unruh, was the State Dept. during Mrs. Clinton’s reign there.

The Isaias family’s alleged involvement in baby-body-parts trafficking, closely linked to Planned Parenthood, was revealed during the undercover investigation carried on by the Center for Medical Progress. Not only were the DaVinci/DV outfits identified as suppliers by a Planned Parenthood official in one of the CMP undercover videos, but CMP reports, according to Mr. Unruh, that the 2008 annual report of Planned Parenthood Orange & SanBernardino Counties “‘lists DaVinci Biosciences as one of the major financial donors to the abortion group.’”

“CMP said that for eight years,” reports WND, “Planned Parenthood ‘supplied aborted baby hearts, lungs, brains and intestines to DV Biologics, which DV Biologics then resold for profit. … In exchange for merely providing access to aborted baby body parts,’” reports CMP, quoted by WND, “‘Planned Parenthood received kickback contributions from DaVinci Biosciences over the course of their eight-year contract.’”

OR’s report on the Isaias brothers “cited documentation from the New York Times, which profiled the ‘wealthy brothers’ in 2014,” writes Mr. Unruh. “‘The two men, Roberto and William Isaias, are fugitives from Ecuador, which has angrily pressed Washington to turn them over, to no avail,’ the Times said,” quotes the OR report cited by WND. “‘A year after their relatives gave $90,000 to help re-elect Mr. Obama,’” reported the New York Times, as related by WND, “‘the Administration rejected Ecuador’s extradition request for the men, fueling accusations that such donations were helping to keep the brothers and their families safely on American soil.’ The [OR] report explained the brothers were sentenced in absentia in Ecuador to eight years in prison for a ‘scheme to run a bank into the ground by making loans to businesses they controlled and then presenting false balance sheets to get bailout funds. Ecuador,’” reported OR, quoted by Mr. Unruh, “‘says it lost more than $400 million.’”

While Ecuador was pleading with the State Dept. for cooperation in returning the convicted gangsters, “‘the family made hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to Democratic and Republican political campaigns,’” OR reported, quoted by Mr. Unruh. “‘Family members gave roughly $300,000 to Democrat politicians alone and reached out to Hillary Clinton through her aide, Cheryl Mills,’ the report said. ‘In return, the family received favorable treatment from the Obama Administration and State Dept. under Clinton, which expedited their immigration into the US.’”

The Orange County prosecution against the Isaias companies, reports WND, “contends that the [DaVinci and DV] companies ‘had no problem procuring on a regular basis tissue of aborted babies,’” reports OR, quoted by WND, “‘including hearts, lungs, kidneys, brains, intestines, skeletal muscle and bones. … The tissue – and often stem cells derived from the tissue, was marked up ten times over costs, and sometimes more,’” said OR, “‘creating a profitable revenue stream for the Isaias family.’”

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas is seeking $1.6 million from the two companies as a fine “for profiting from the illegal sale of aborted baby remains, OR said,” as reported by Mr. Unruh.

Waking Up?

MORE THAN TWO DOZEN PROMINENT BLACK BISHOPS & PASTORS authored an open letter to the Democratic Party – and specifically to the party’s Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton – “demanding a political reformation,” reports Bradford Richardson in the Washington Times, “on the issue black people care about.” The letter was delivered to the Clinton campaign headquarters a week ago, writes Mr. Richardson, and it “finds fault with the Democratic Presidential nominee’s lackluster commitment to religious liberty, wholesale adoption of the LGBT movement’s agenda and uncompromising support for abortion rights.”

Saying the group was “comprised only of Democrats and independents,” reports the Times, the letter requested “a meeting with Mrs. Clinton within the first 100 days of her prospective Presidency,” should that develop, “to discuss how the Democratic Party can do a better job of serving one of its most loyal constituencies.”

Dr. Susan Berry, writing for Breitbart.com, quotes significant sections of the letter, including a quote from Mrs. Clinton’s own remarks in April, 2015, “in which she said, ‘Far too many women are still denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth. … Deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.’ The black leaders assert,” reports Dr. Berry, “‘for political leaders to call for changes in citizens’ beliefs is reminiscent of totalitarianism.’

“The leaders also note,” writes Dr. Berry, “the disproportionately high percentage of black babies aborted in the United States, nearly 40% of all abortions performed. ‘Abortion in the black community has had a catastrophic impact,’ they write to [Mrs.] Clinton,” reports the Breitbart writer. “‘Black babies are dying at terrifying rates. How do you justify your unconscionable silence in the face of such destruction of innocent black life? Don’t black lives matter?’”

Tool for Persuasion

AN ADVANCE IN MEASURABLE KNOWLEDGE of the development of unborn babies is worth noting and worth citing when approaching conversations with folks who are conflicted about abortion.

A research team at Britain’s University of Oxford, reports Dr. Susan Berry for BreitbartNews.com, citing London’s Daily Mail as source, “says a baby’s first heartbeat is now far earlier than was previously understood.”

The purpose of the study dealt with “‘finding out how the heart first starts to beat and how problems can arise in heart development,’” explained lead researcher Paul Riley, a British Health Foundation professor, quoted by Dr. Berry. Through pursuing this line of study, “‘we are one step closer,’” said Prof. Riley, “‘to being able to prevent heart conditions from arising during pregnancy.’”

Well and good. But the study’s findings can be applied in abortion-policy persuasion as well.

Since many Americans who think of themselves as “pro-choice” on abortion policy have very little awareness of the human nature of the developing human baby, the placement of heartbeat detection on the timeline of the baby’s development can be an eye opener to those who have bought into the “blob of tissue” fallacy.

The research team in England has now pinpointed heartbeat detection as available at just 16 days after conception, often a moment which precedes a mother’s awareness of her pregnancy.

In approaching the opening of minds on the question of abortion, a useful question has long been, “Would you support making abortion illegal (or more difficult) at the stage of pregnancy where the baby’s heartbeat can be detected?” Those answering “yes” to that question may now be faced with the fact: That heart is already beating at 16 days after conception; medical science has proven that!

Into the Precincts!

Nov. 1, 2016, Washington Update commentary by Tony Perkins, Family Research Council president

Donald Trump doesn’t just want to build a wall across the border; he wants to build a wall between taxpayers and abortion, too. Maybe that’s why Planned Parenthood is frantically knocking on voters’ doors in what CBS calls a “massive election effort” to help Hillary Clinton. Apparently, when America’s biggest abortion provider isn’t busy destroying lives, the group is spending its time electing people that’ll help them stay in business. According to reports, the organization is sinking an unprecedented $30 million into its PAC, hoping to populate Congress and the White House with abortion allies who would help protect its multi-million dollar federal funding stream.

Cecile Richards’s group was one of the first to endorse Clinton, and she returned the favor by promising to force taxpayers to bankroll abortion-on-demand. Unfortunately for Hillary (who’s all too happy to take the money tainted by the illegal sale of baby organs), Americans have lost their stomach for the kind of rabid agenda Clinton is pushing. Just last week, Harvard University could find only 36% support for her call to repeal the Hyde Amendment (a position to the left of even Pres. Obama!). In the memo obtained by CBS, Planned Parenthood Action Fund – the group’s PAC – “boasts that they are deploying 1,500 paid staffers and 3,500 volunteers to knock on over half-a-million doors in New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada and North Carolina.” That’s on top of the cash they’re blowing through on direct mail, phone banks and “one of the largest canvassing operations in the country, they say.”

Of course, you can’t blame the organization for being anxious. In the last few years, there’s been a noticeable shift in public opinion on abortion. More young people are pro-life than ever before. Roughly 400 pro-life bills were considered in state legislatures in 2015 alone. And Planned Parenthood is having a tougher time than ever selling abortion to a nation that has the technology to look inside the womb. Making matters worse, their number-one political target – Donald Trump – has vowed to defund their organization, appoint pro-life Justices, end late-term abortions and protect the Hyde Amendment.

Meanwhile, as Planned Parenthood makes house calls to protect their pro-abortion agenda, people in the pews are looking for pastors to give more direction in this election. A study by the Barna Group, which analyzed 10 sources of political influence for voters, shows that for three out of four evangelicals, religious beliefs were the number-one influencer in their political decisions. While that 75% is a positive number, the survey also suggests those believers are generally left to navigate the intersection of faith and politics alone. Only one in four listed their pastor as a major influencer in their political decisions. Despite what the media would have you think, faith does play a major role in “helping Christians figure out how to vote,” George Barna explained.

“There is great potential for churches and pastors to impact voting decisions. In fact, one out of every four Americans say they trust their church or pastor to exert a lot of influence on their political choices. What a tremendous opportunity for churches to position themselves as relevant to people’s life choices while taking advantage of an available opportunity to influence people’s lives. Our research reveals that most pastors have chosen to not speak to their congregants about the issues or the candidates involved in this year’s election, which might explain the low-ranked influence of pastors in this study. But if more pastors were willing to teach their congregants how to think Biblically about political issues, matters of governance and candidate selection, the election campaign might have been dramatically altered.”

If abortion centers are encouraging people to vote, then pastors should do the same! The least a church can do is give their congregation the information they need to make informed decisions. In the meantime, Planned Parenthood’s strategy is ironic. If they’re looking for voters, maybe they should stop aborting future ones!

A Major Stake

Oct. 27, 2016, commentary by Dave Andrusko in National Right to Life News Today

The list goes on and on and on. The public doesn’t agree with abortion maven Hillary Clinton on her support for partial-birth abortions and late-term abortions, and her opposition to a ban on partial-birth abortion and parental involvement – to name just four items.

And a new poll conducted for Politico/Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health shows that she is on the wrong side of still another abortion-related issue. Americans overwhelmingly do not want their tax dollars syphoned off to pay for abortions. The margin among likely voters was a whopping 22 points – 58% to only 36%.

Why is this significant? Because the question is really asking about the Hyde Amendment, a provision that is attached to the annual appropriations bill that covers many federal health programs (including Medicaid), which has stood the test of time and which Clinton and the Democrat Party is dead-set on eliminating. To quote the Democrat Party platform, “We will continue to oppose – and seek to overturn – federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment.”

When you understand that at least two million people escaped with their lives because of the Hyde Amendment, you easily appreciate why PPFA [Planned Parenthood Federation of America] so hates the now 40-year-old provision and why PPFA’s candidate, Hillary Clinton, even more so.

No “unwanted” child should ever escape Planned Parenthood’s maw, let alone two million. As Prof. Michael New explained in his study of the Hyde Amendment’s life-affirming impact, “This is roughly equal to the entire population of Houston, the fourth largest city in America. It is also roughly equal to the population of the entire state of New Mexico and to the combined populations of the states of Rhode Island and Delaware.

But the poll shows something else. Eliminating the Hyde Amendment is like catnip for Clinton’s supporters: 57% are for scrapping the Hyde Amendment.

And there is no poll, no level of opposition that will dissuade pro-abortionists. Politico’s Kate Scanlon writes, “Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) said she’s confident that as more people learn what the Hyde Amendment does, support for repeal will grow. ‘It has been a long-term fight, but we have some phenomenal young people in our country who are working day and night to turn this around,’ she said on the 40th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment last month. ‘It’s not going to take us another 40 years to win this.’”

Still another reason to remember why holding the House, the Senate and [regaining] the Presidency is so critical.

It Can Get Worse

Oct. 28, 2016, report by Susan Yoshihara for Center for Family & Human Rights

Recently released Wikileaks e-mails show that Pres. Obama wanted to fund abortions overseas, a clear violation of long-standing US law and policy, but that he nonetheless wanted to allow for conscience protection for doctors reluctant to perform abortions. Abortion groups apparently blocked that effort, insisting that doctors be forced to perform abortions. E-mails show that Hillary Clinton intends to give abortion advocates exactly what they want – US funding of abortion overseas and striking down all conscience protections.

The news came to light in e-mails between long-time Clinton advisor Jennifer Klein and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Klein said Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocacy organizations told her that White House staffer Tina Tchen let them know privately of the Administration’s intention to change its interpretation of the Helms Amendment, the 43-year-old law that forbids funding or promotion of abortion overseas. Abortion groups have pressured the Obama Administration for years to reinterpret the law.

Klein told Podesta, “The [White House] was prepared to go forward but with two notable limitations: First that any organization with a religious or moral objection would not be required to provide, pay for or refer for abortion. Second, that an organization that does not provide abortion services could not be discriminated against in the solicitation, application or granting of foreign assistance funds. …

“I have also heard that after listening to the strong concerns of the advocates, this may not be going forward,” Klein said, and added, “Both of these [limitations] pose problems, and in my view, leaving Helms intact is a better alternative. The conscience clause is at best odd and at worst harmful.”

Clinton has gone on record that she intends to change the long-standing interpretation of the Helms Amendment. Klein indicated she would go farther and make no accommodations for faith-based groups. “I’d even go one step further to argue that if Helms were amended so that abortions could be paid for in cases of rape, that factor should be considered in the application, given the reality that in many parts of the world, the USAID grantee is going to be the only health care available,” Klein said.

Klein also said the conscience protections were a problem as “a matter of politics” for Clinton, apparently a reference to her campaign for the US Presidency. Clinton has targeted religious groups as a barrier to abortion access. She told attendees at a 2015 Women’s Summit that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” to give women “reproductive health care,” a term she told Congress includes abortion.

Clinton advisor John Podesta has come under fire since Wikileaks revealed his attempts to instigate a “revolution” in the Catholic Church. According to e-mails, he set up at least two organizations funded by billionaire George Soros for the purpose of sowing dissent within the ranks of the faithful on Church teachings. …